Bump: The Techie Fist Bump

Remember when Bump was the new app? There was really something genuinely satisfying to physically Bumping your phone to share contact information. Well, Bump has done a lot of growing up since the old days. From starting out as a contact sharing app, to diverging off into a payment app, and now having evolved into a file transferring app (that Bumps with your computer too!), Bump is making sure that you haven’t forgot about it.

Basics

Bump, at it’s most basic, is an asset-sharing app. You choose a contact, file, photo, etc. with either your computer or another Bumper (and yes, you still need to physically Bump both of your iPhones). The idea behind the evolution of Bump, is to replace USB drives, which I think is a noble goal. (I personally hate USB drives, mostly because I never have one when I need one, but I always have one when I don’t need it.) But, I digress, on to Bump.

Getting Started

Bump photos, documents, contacts and files!

Setting up Bump is pretty easy. You can fill our your contact card (this is your contact info that you share with other Bumpers) manually, import your data from Facebook or pull from an existing contact card. You can personalize the following information: name, job/company, phone number(s), email address(es), urls and physical address(es.) You can also link your card to your Linkedin, Twitter and Facebook profiles. And, that’s it for set up.

Features

The main page of the app is your profile card (probably because this is the information that you are most likely to share). On the top left of the screen is a message icon. This is your Activity feed, letting you know all of the different people (or computers) you have Bumped with. When you tap on any of the contacts in this feed, it will pull up the complete history of Bumping between the two of you. You can open files and documents on this page in addition to sending messages to your contact. And once you connect with someone on Bump, you can continue messaging text, documents, photos, etc., even when you are not near them. On the bottom left is an information icon and on the bottom right is a send icon so you can email your files when Bumping just isn’t working. At the top right of your card is the Bump Now icon, which means you are ready to Bump and share your contact.

When you Bump with another user, a screen will pop up asking you to connect. Once you connect with them, you create an Activity feed with them.

To get to the other sharing features of the app you need to swipe horizontally. These other feature pages are: Photos, Files and Contacts.

Sharing is caring!

Photos will pull from your phone. Simply select the photos you would like to share and Bump away. The Files feature allows you send videos, audio, documents & received files and items from your Dropbox (if you allow Bump access.) Videos are pulled from your phone, and audio is pulled from your iTunes account on the iPhone. Documents & received files are the items that have been Bumped to you and the items that you have added to your iPhone to be shared. And Contacts pulls from your entire contact list.

How to Bump to your Computer

Trying to talk to my Mac, but Bump wasn’t having it.

Okay, so this is the part that’s pretty cool — with this new version of Bump you can Bump items to your computer. In order to Bump to your computer, you must log onto bu.mp on your computer and Bump the space bar with your iPhone. This way you can send files, documents, photos or whatever, that you have received directly to your computer. You can also load up your iPhone with specific documents and files that you would like to share by connecting your iPhone with your computer, opening up iTunes and uploading the specified files to the File Sharing section.

Final Thoughts

Bump has come a long way since the beginning. It is now so much cleaner, both design-wise and functionality-wise than when it first appeared in the App Store. Although, one thing that I noticed that might be nice to add, is the ability to have a secondary contact card, you know, maybe a professional and a personal one. But I can see the idea of storing and Bumping documents and files and then being able to Bump those items to your computer to be especially appealing to those who are in marketing or sales. Simply, load up your phone with sales decks and marketing materials and easily share your assets to clients, employees, and potential customers. Bump is also pretty useful to share photos quickly with friends and then Bump them later to your desktop.

Overall, I think it’s still a useful app, especially if you are in the profession where you are constantly sharing the same material and might not always have a computer at hand.